There are lots of different looks for books. Hardback, paperback, electronic, paper, photo covers, text covers. To me, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the best-looking book in this picture, with its thick, hard covers, old pages that turn easily, and big first letters at the beginning of sections. It's what I call bookish.
If books don't look bookish, the story has to try a lot harder. Even good stories on crackly gray Scholastic paper are kind of hard to take seriously (although I own pretty many of those).
The prime example of bookishness (excluding their covers) is the 1970's publication of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. I've never seen books with more friendly pages. The paper is soft and off-white, the inside illustrations are pleasantly sketch-y (not sketchy as in shady, but sketch-like), and the font is easy to read but pretty. The feel, the smell, the look of a book...what kind of book-look draws you in?
Definitely not electronic. Hard covers are hard to read (hence the name?) I like books that are flexible enough to be kept open with two weights on both sides to be read at a table as I eat!
ReplyDeleteHaha, I didn't think of hardcovers that way. Sometimes they do stay open better than paperback, though, cause they're so heavy. But weights or bookstands are good for light books!
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